One year of the COVID-19 virus, there are still a great number of unknowns about the disease that could result in a projected 1.8 million deaths worldwide by the close of the year. Then, on Jan. 9, 2020, the World Health Organization reported that Chinese authorities determined the cause of the outbreak at the Huanan [South China] seafood market — a novel coronavirus. On Jan. 11, the first death caused by COVID-19 led scientists to a genetic sequence similar to the Sars-CoV-2 infection, which had history in horseshoe bats of China’s Yunnan province. However, the WHO report mentioned that there is no specific evidence to demonstrate the possible transmission from bat to human. Unfortunately, identifying how an infectious disease jumped from animal to human is something that can take years to solve.

Source: National Post December 31, 2020 00:35 UTC